doubt thou the stars are fire
by with the monsters
Summary: -all for the scent of orchids and coconuts. oh, these tangled webs we weave.- DaphneTheodore.


doubt thou the stars are fire  
_makes a swan-like end, fading in music_  
(from Hamlet and The Merchant Of Venice, by William Shakespeare.)

**A/N:** Response to challenge by lumos maximum in the **Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum**. It was supposed to be a tragedy about Theodore Nott and the discovery that his life is far too cruel for such a pretty boy. I suppose it contains that – but I just couldn't turn it into an angst-fest. I tried, I really did, I swear!

_I was eight years old and  
Far far too young  
To know that the stories  
Of battles and glory  
Was a tale a kind mother  
Made up for her son._

:…**&**…:

That scent is on the staircase again. It's really beginning to annoy him. It's some sort of shampoo, maybe – the faint, familiar hint of an exotic flower that his mother is probably growing somewhere in their gargantum greenhouses at home mixed in with something else – and it is always, _always_, lingering in the air on the steps that lead up to the sixth-year boys' and girls' dormitories.

He traces it all the way down the stairs from where it begins at the point where the boys' staircase merges with the girls'. (They're Slytherins, they're far too dignified to even _consider _sneaking into each others' rooms. Or something like that.)

"You know, Theodore, you look sort of like a dog when you do that?" Soleus inquires from where he is lounging in one of the green armchairs, his hair falling into his face in a way that really makes you want to slap him.

"We're going to be late," Theo replies, ignoring the use of his full name, and stalks across the common room towards the door.

"Ooh, someone's touchy today," Soleus taunts, rising from the chair with a sort of catlike grace that Theo has really come to loathe because it is a mark branded on himself as surely as it is branded on all the other Slytherins of their heritage, their upbringing, their wealth and ancestors and crimes.

"That … that _smell _is back," he complains as they cross towards the door, his steps measured as Soleus marches alongside him, arrogantly confident in his utter supremacy.

"Merlin, man, get over it already. I'm getting sick of you pining after a _smell_."

"I am _not _pining," Theo protests, elbowing his friend none too lightly in the ribs. "It's there every other day and I don't know where it's coming from – don't tell me that doesn't bother you?"

"It's just a girl," Soleus retorts as they begin the long trek up from the dungeons to the Great Hall. "I don't understand their obsession with being so _clean_. A spot of dirt is _good _for you every now and again."

"Yeah, but with you it's not exactly 'every now and again', is it?" Theo inquires jokingly, a smirk on his face as Soleus glares. "What with your odd obsession with coming back from practice wearing half the quidditch pitch and being too lazy to shower before you fall asleep."

"Yeah, well, that's what House Elves are for, isn't it? To clean up after us?"

Theo sighs and inclines his head. "Whatever you say, Sol. I suppose they can't have much else to occupy their time with."

"Now, Theodore," Soleus says, linking his arm around Theo's neck and drawing him close. They are extremely similar in height, and this irritates Theo to no end because it means Soleus can always get right up in his face. "What are we going to do about this girl, hm?"

"Well, _Soleus_," Theo replies, shoving the other boy out of his personal space, "_we _are not going to do anything, because a) she doesn't matter and b) we don't even know who she is. Oh, and thirdly, I wouldn't involve you even if I _did _know who she was _and_, by some miracle, she actually mattered."

"It's time you learned your a-b-c's, Nott," Soleus informs him. "It goes a, b, c – not a, b, thirdly."

"You're such a git, Lestrange," Theo complains, half-heartedly punching his friend in the shoulder. "You have _no clue _about anything."

"Be that as it may," Soleus says as they round the corner into the Entrance Hall, "I'm still going to find out who she is. Ten galleons on it being the Black girl."

"Which one?" Theo rejoins with a laugh. "That family sprawls out like a swamp. There are _hundreds _of them."

"And every single one refuses to claim kinship with Sirius Black," Soleus says thoughtfully, muscling a first-year Hufflepuff out of the way so they can stride over to the Slytherin table. "Which is funny – you'd think they'd all want him. I guess we really do bear grudges for too long. I hear his mummy blasted him off their family tree."

Theo represses a shiver. "I remember her," he says quietly. "I hate her."

"Don't we all?" Soleus replies, picking up a piece of toast and spreading it thickly with butter and marmalade the second he's sat down. "It's a good thing our families are all into arranged marriages. Imagine someone like her having to find a husband off her own bat. That would be a nightmare."

Theo laughs as he heaps scrambled eggs onto his toast, reaching over for the smoked salmon and ignoring the faces of disgust Soleus pulls.

"Merlin's beard, Sol, you've watched me eat this for nearly six years now. Do you have to keep pulling the same face every morning?"

Soleus nods, his mouth full of toast, unable to speak.

"Good morning Lestrange, Nott," a voice says from behind Theo, and he cranes round to find himself face-to-boob with Pansy Parkinson.

"Morning, Parkinson," Soleus replies cheerfully from the other side of the table, smirking wickedly as Theo disentangles himself and turns back around to face his breakfast, face carefully composed with his hair in disarray and chest heaving just a little.

"Are these seats free?" she asks, somehow managing to simultaneously glare at her younger sister, Violet, while still smiling flirtatiously at Theo. He has to credit these girls with astonishing powers of multi-tasking.

"No, Parkinson, they're not," a voice replies from Theo's left, and he turns slightly to see Daphne Greengrass on the other side of the table, her long blonde hair went and hanging over her shoulder as she folds her arms and scowls at Pansy from where she is standing just behind Soleus.

"Hey, baby!" Soleus says enthusiastically, marmalade sitting on his chin. "You've deigned to join us today?"

"Oh, I can't tell you in how many ways I'm not your _baby_," she informs him snarkily, her blue eyes flashing as her eyes lift to challenge Pansy. "You waiting for something, Parkinson?"

Pansy gives a little huff of disdain and stalks off to sit with Malfoy and Blaise Zabini, evidently deciding to ignore Theo, Soleus and Daphne for the rest of the meal as she flicks her hair and sits facing away from them.

"You know," Theo says thoughtfully as Daphne slides into the seat next to Soleus, reaching for the pumpkin juice, "you look way too angelic to be that cruel."

"It's not cruelty if she deserves it, Nott," Daphne retorts snappily, folding her hands in her lap as Soleus takes the pumpkin juice off her and insists on filling her glass for her.

"She has a point," he agrees, nodding patronisingly at Theo, who just rolls his eyes. "I mean, look at Malfoy's mother. She's _gorgeous_ and yet she's about as evil as you can get."

"I heard that, Lestrange," Draco warns him from further down the table, glaring at the other boy.

"Don't worry, Sol," Daphne says, suddenly using a very soppy and "coo-ey" tone of voice. "He's just jealous that you're prettier than him."

Malfoy glares and Theo has to repress a chuckle as Soleus looks like all his dreams have come true. Daphne may be easily the prettiest girl in Slytherin, but she's never even been kissed before and he knows that she's holding out for someone she deems 'worthy' of her time.

That doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy setting the Slytherin boys at each others' throats, though. Sometimes Theo wonders if she isn't part demon with a penchant for chaos and destruction.

"So will you go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?" Soleus asks hopefully, and Theo hides a smirk behind his hand as Daphne just tilts her head and _looks _at the other boy.

"What do _you_ think, Lestrange?"

She casts a quick glance over at Theo, one eyebrow arching as she finds him with sniggers muffled in his palms.

"Wait," Soleus says, suddenly distracted from his quest to go out with her, "what shampoo did you use this morning?"

Theo levels one fast, furious glare at his friend as her second eyebrow joins the first, raised above her surprised eyes.

"What?" she repeats eventually, looking at him like maybe he's going crazy.

"I said what shampoo did you use this morning?" Soleus says again, cramming another piece of toast into his mouth. Theo kicks him once, hard, under the table.

"Is it any of your business?" she inquires finally, after a long pause, and Soleus shrugs.

"Theo wants to know."

"Does he now?" Daphne says slowly, leaning over the table towards Theo, her hair falling to pool on the table in wet ringlets. "So, Soleus, you are proposing that Theodore Nott, the famous 'man-of-mystery', actually gives a shit about what shampoo I use every morning?"

Theo swallows once, struggling to pull his calm veneer back into place, and drags a hand through his brown hair, messing it up further unintentionally.

"It's just …" he attempts, sighing and locking his fingers together and resting his chin on them. "It's just there's this shampoo-smell on the stairs every other day and it's driving me nuts trying to figure out what it is."

She mimics his pose and tilts her head slightly, her eyes sparkling with mischievous little stars he's never noticed before. "It's really bothering you?" she asks in slight astonishment. "Because I would never _ever _have pegged you for someone who notices that sort of thing."

"That just shows you don't know me at all," Theo replies back, one eyebrow raised challengingly, and she smiles back at him.

"Fine," she says, rising from her seat and straightening her skirt. "Hogsmeade, Saturday. Teach me _all _about yourself."

She walks off in that way she has where it's like every step is a dance and Theo and Soleus just stare after her in complete shock.

"What the _fuck_, Theodore?" Soleus says eventually, and Theo turns round to stare at his friend in bewilderment.

"I have no idea, Sol," he replies slowly. "I have _no _idea."

:…**&**…:

They arrive at Potions ten minutes late, and Slughorn tries to glare at them as they slip inside.

"Why so late, boys?" he inquires with a somewhat pitiable attempt at anger. "The lesson began ten minutes ago."

"My apologies, professor," Theo says smoothly, catching Daphne's eye where she is standing at the back of the room, behind the portly teacher. "Sol left his textbook in the dorm."

"I hate you," Soleus mutters in his ear, his un-forgotten textbook clutched in his hands. Theo stands on his foot with an absent air and smirks at the hiss of pain his friend can't help but emit.

"Very well," Slughorn says tiredly. "Mr. Lestrange, you will go and work with Miss Granger, please," he commands, ignoring both cries of outrage, and turns to Theo. "And Mr. Nott with Miss Greengrass, if you don't mind."

"I mind!" Soleus howls next to Theo. "Why do I have to work with _Granger_?"

"Karma," Theo whispers to his friend, grinning blithely as he slips to the back of the classroom and cranes his head around to watch Slughorn deal with the violently protesting pair at the front.

"Hello again," Daphne says as he takes the seat next to her, turning to give him a quick, sly smile. "I was hoping he'd pick you and not Lestrange to work with me. That boy gives me _such _a headache."

"He's not _too _bad," Theo protests half-heartedly, glancing at her. Her hair is drier and pulled up into a ponytail, the golden-blonde hairs curling slightly at the damp ends.

"We're doing Amortensia today," she informs him as Slughorn finishes berating Granger and Soleus and returns to the front of the classroom. "He's given us all samples and we have to separate all the ingredients out."

"This is it?" he asks as he leans over the desk and pulls the top off a small black cauldron, smiling as the scent washes over him.

"Put the lid back on!" she hisses as Slughorn taps the board enthusiastically. Theo blinks as her hair swishes into his face and he's momentarily confused because he's sure that the smell should stop assaulting him when the lid's back on.

"Oh," he says suddenly, lowering his voice to a whisper. "It _is _you."

"You, Nott," she tells him, straightening her shoulders again and turning to give him a quick glare, "Are either deliberately a cryptic little git or just plain _stupid_."

"Let's go with the cryptic git, yeah?" he suggests, nudging her, and she bends her head to stifle a giggle.

"Shh," she tells him, elbowing him in return, "I'm trying to concentrate."

"Yeah, yeah," he mutters, grinning, still trying to work out what else he could smell when that lid came off.

He gets another opportunity several minutes later when Slughorn finally releases them to begin their work.

"What do you smell?" Daphne asks as she moves the cauldron over the desk and pulls the lid off, breathing in the pink steam with a dreamy smile on her face.

"Orchids," he says, suddenly placing the flower, "And coconut. And … some sort of perfume – a muggle one, I think, maybe French – and the sea and just the faintest hint of horses. You?"

She snaps back to herself and awards him a quick, private smile. "I smell autumn and that smell that you get just after it's rained in the countryside and … I think I smell horses just the tiniest bit as well … and also something like coffee, maybe."

He grins broadly at her, suddenly disarmingly cheerful and completely and deliciously filled up with that wonderful scent. "I love coffee!"

She laughs as she begins to heap things on their desk and points out things for him to pick up and work with. They spend several moments working in companiable silence before she breaks it, bare seconds after their hands brush when he is reaching for a beetle eye and she needs a scalpel.

"So, I hear you like horses?" she asks, looking up at him, and he grins down at her.

"Yeah – my dad was big on them before he went into prison. We've got a whole stable-full at home."

"Merlin, I'm so jealous," she complains, brushing a strand of hair off her cheek. "I've always loved them but all my parents will fork out for is riding lessons because Astoria's allergic."

"You can come ride mine," he suggests suddenly, surprising both of them. "My dad's not around so they don't get half the exercise they need."

"You mean that?" she inquires breathlessly, turning round to gaze at him fully, her eyes wide and excited. "Truthfully?"

He laughs and nods and with a squeal of delight she bounds into his arms and hugs him tightly, inebriated with joy.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she cries, her arms locked around his neck, and he grins and wraps his arms around her shoulders, breathing in the _orchidandcoconut_ scent that is clinging to her pretty hair and feeling just the smallest bit intoxicated himself.

:…**&**…:

That evening Theo is lounging on a sofa, reading a book while Daphne is curled up against him, intent on a Charms essay.

"Well, well, well," a voice says, and Theo can hear the sneer in it before he even glances up.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" he asks tiredly, shifting upwards and automatically putting his body just the tiniest bit in between the other boy and Daphne. Her little pixie-smile disappears the second Malfoy moves round to address her directly.

"Evening, Greengrass," he says, and Daphne's brows draw as she glares at him.

"What do you want, Malfoy? Has mummy finally got up the courage to tell you she doesn't like you?"

"Gosh, Greengrass, you're so funny," he drawls sarcastically, one eyebrow raised.

"You know, Malfoy, it's amusing," Theo says, his arm snaking around Daphne's subtly to keep her from launching herself at Malfoy and clawing his eyes out, "you're so much braver when you've got your heavyweights to keep someone from rearranging your precious little face."

"So, I hear you're going on a date with Nott this weekend?" Malfoy continues, utterly ignoring Theo and instead addressing Daphne, who takes a deep breath and silently counts to ten.

"You heard correctly, Malfoy," she replies with an artful air of boredom, slouching back and letting her skirt ride up a little, feeling utterly powerful as Malfoy's eyes dart down to examine the strip of pale skin that has appeared in between the top of her stocking and her skirt.

"What did he have to promise in return for that, then?" Malfoy inquires, detaching his gaze back up to her eyes with considerable effort.

"He didn't have to promise anything," Daphne replies. "Funnily enough, it is possible for a boy to win a girl over without having to bribe her."

"So it's not true that you promised to let her ride your horses?" Malfoy asks, suddenly switching his attention to Theo, who simply glares at him.

"That, Malfoy, is frankly none of your business."

"You're boring me now," Daphne warns, blue eyes flashing, her grip on Theo's hand tightening. "You can go."

"Do you know what those horses are, Nott?" Malfoy inquires, all of his malicious intent channelled into the furious glare he directs at the taller boy. "Do you know what they represent?"

"They represent beauty, power and they are the finest examples of the equestrian race," Theo replies proudly, memories of his father leaning on stable doors and expounding the virtues of his beasts to his young son, impressing a love of horses on the little boy forever. "They're horses to be extremely proud of."

"No, Nott," Malfoy says, leaning closer as Theo gets to his feet and stares the other boy down. "They're not horses to be proud of. Each one of those horses is a stolen prize – a memento of each wizard family your father murdered. Does that make you _proud_, Nott?"

"You're a liar," Theo replies automatically as the faces around register shock and drain of colour. The whole common room is totally silent as they watch the fight.

"I disagree," Malfoy replies slowly, his smirk widening as he realises he is getting to the other boy. "Your father is a sad, macabre old man who keeps horses to remind him exactly how many lives he's taken. How many horses do you have in your stables at home, Nott? Twenty? Thirty? And every single one taken from a scene of death and horror to begin a new life with the murderer of their original owners."

Theo is speechless with anger and disbelief.

"What a shame," Pansy Parkinson joins in, her arm sliding into Draco's as her brown eyes sneer up at Theo. "Such a cruel past for such a pretty boy."

"Okay, Parkinson, enough already," a voice announces from behind Theo, and he doesn't even dare to breathe as he feels Daphne bounce to her feet behind him. "You're just angry because he keeps rejecting you. You don't get why nobody would want to date you, right?"

Pansy is white as she scowls at the other girl, trying for anger, and Theo is trembling with fear for what Daphne will say to him when she is done with Pansy.

"It's because you're _pathetic_, Parkinson," Daphne whispers, slinking round in front of Theo, mesmerising in her wild, catlike grace. "You need to understand that. You're _pathetic_. You're _nothing_. In ten years time when you've lost all your looks nobody will want to know you. Ever. You'll be all alone in your loneliness and maybe … maybe you'll finally wish you'd taken time to cultivate some intelligence before it was too late."

"Quite the little wildcat," Malfoy drawls, and Daphne whips to face him, her hair flying and caressing Theo's face as he quietly rests a hand on the small of her back, giving her support – should she want it. She leans back, just a little, and he breathes a massive sigh of relief.

"I forget women with a mind of their own must be quite the novel experience for you, Malfoy," she says acidly. "I bet you grew up used to watching your father knock your mother around like it's a _sport_."

"Shut up!" Malfoy screams, and suddenly his wand is in his hand and his eyes are dilated with fury and his sleeve rides up, just a little, and Daphne takes in the black mark against his skin.

"Daphne!" Theo cries, and she screams as he throws her sideways. Malfoy's curse flies past his ear as he lands on top of her and rolls them both out of range quickly.

"_What _is going on here?!" a voice bellows from near the entrance, and Theo and Daphne glance out from the table they have ended up hiding under to find Snape in the doorway, glaring at Malfoy who is standing with his wand still outstretched.

The whole of Slytherin watches with bated breath as Snape gives a small, icy flick of his fingers, and Malfoy's shoulders slump with defeat and he follows the professor out without a backwards glance.

"Poor Draco," Daphne whispers almost soundlessly against Theo's shoulder as voices start babbling all at once.

"He just tried to kill us!" Theo protests, and turning round is astonished to find her with tears rolling down her pretty cheeks, her stars momentarily absent.

"I grew up with him," she replies sadly, and he pulls her into a hug, his head bowed awkwardly under the tabletop, and gently soothes her. "He was such an innocent little boy and he's grown up into this _monster _and he can't _see _it at all and now …" she gulps fearfully, her hands clutching spasmodically at Theo's sleeves, "Now You-Know-Who's got to him and he'll never get away. Not ever."

"Shh," Theo whispers, and gently pulls her out from under the table, swinging her up into his arms easily. He ignores the glances they get from suspicious eyes and instead carries her up the deserted stairway. He turns right instead of left to climb up the stairs to the girls' dormitories, thanking Merlin that the Slytherin boys are so universally thought to be too well brought up to ever consider going up the girls' staircase.

"It'll be okay," he promises as he reaches the girls' dorm, picking his way across strewn clothes and heading for the messiest bed, littered with papers and quills and textbooks.

"Thank you," she murmurs as he lays her down, clearing a space amongst her paraphernalia, and tugs him down to lie alongside her, ignoring his protests. "And I'm sorry about your dad."

He smiles absently, suddenly a thousand miles away. She watches him and his clouded blue eyes and his handsome face and she burns with pity for the past that has just been exposed to him.

"My mum always painted such a beautiful picture of the war," he confesses, his arms going around her automatically as she snuggles into him, her hair splaying across both of them as she flicks the curtains shut with a swish of her wand.

"She did?" Daphne encourages, her face pressed into his green jumper.

"Yeah," he replies, blinking himself back to the present and smiling down at her, pressing a soft, chaste kiss to her forehead. "She always made it all sound so glorious. She made me so proud of my dad. I didn't mind at all that he'd abandoned us to try to flee Azkaban because she made it all seem so fantastical and mysterious."

"Like you," Daphne says suddenly, without thinking, and he frowns curiously down at her.

"What do you mean?"

She giggles and hides her face, blushing. He lifts her chin with two fingers, gently but insistently, and repeats the question.

"I mean you've always seemed so mysterious and distant. I always felt kind of sorry for you because you were sort of abandoned, but – I don't know," she trails off uncertainly, her eyes innocent as she gazes up at him. "I think that's what attracted me to you in the first place."

"You were attracted to me?" Theo asks in surprise, and she laughs up at him, her stars back.

"Theo, Theo, Theo," she murmurs happily, sliding up the bed so her face is level with his. "Amortensia has been smelling of the same things for me since I was nine and I met you at my mother's ball. It's never changed. Not once."

He kisses her then, because he figures that was kind of permission to, and she giggles almost drunkenly into the kiss and presses herself closer to him, her hands locking into his hair and his sliding round to her back, moaning slightly with utter, utter relief and joy as her lips part against his contentedly.

They part eventually, breathless, and he rolls off the bed to hide as her dormmates clatter into the room and begin getting ready for bed loudly.

"Merlin, Daphne!" someone squeals, and Theo holds his breath as the bed springs squeak plaintively above him as several people launch themselves onto the bed.

"How in the _world_ did you bag Nott? You know how much we've all been lusting after him!"

Theo recognises Antoine Moon with a sigh and puts his head in his hands, thinking that he can probably go his whole life without ever hearing this conversation.

"I didn't exactly – " Daphne tries, but someone else interrupts her almost instantly.

"Come on, Daph, don't lie! We all saw the way he was looking at you. Even after Malfoy was such a tit all he cared about was whether you cared!"

"That's not tr – " Daphne attempts again, but Antoine interrupts yet again.

"So did you sleep with him, or what?"

"She must have done – you know that's the best way to get a guy following you around like a little lost puppy."

"How?"

"By taking his virginity, freakshow. That must be how she did it! Oh, Merlin, Daph, did you lose your virginity to him?"

"She did! I bet she did! She just gave him her little doe eyes and – "

"Would you all just _shut up_!" Daphne explodes, and Theo stifles laughter as the bedsprings creak again, presumably as Daphne works her glare up to full, furious intensity.

"But, Daphne – " someone says, and Theo waits expectantly.

"Don't you _but _me," she commands, her voice filled with venom. "I have _not _slept with Theo. I do not _plan _on sleeping with Theo in the foreseeable future. It may be all too easy for you little sluts to forget, but we're supposed to stay pure for our husbands when our parents choose them, _remember_?"

"Oh, come off it, Daph," Antoine says with a snort as Theo buries his face in the floor in an attempt to stave of the hilarity of the idea of any of these girls staying virgins until their eighteenth birthday when they're married off. "_Nobody _keeps to that old rule."

"Well _I _do," Daphne points out, and Theo hears the swish of the curtains as she shuts them again. "Now leave me alone!"

Her head appears on the opposite side of the bed to the rest of the girls, and she grins and beckons him up with one finger.

He slides out from amongst the mess of clothes under her bed and she begins to pull off her shirt.

"What are you _doing_?" he asks, his voice an octave higher than usual.

"Getting ready for bed, you idiot," comes the muffled reply, and comprehension dawns.

"Oh," he replies stupidly, and pulls his jumper off quickly. While he is preoccupied with his trousers she dives into his jumper, snuggling down beneath the covers in it and breathing in the familiar scent happily.

Once he has made it down to his boxers he gets in next to her and breathes a happy sigh as she curls up against his side, the _orchidandcoconutandmuggleperfume _smell rising up to toy with his nostrils.

"It's Coco Mademoiselle," she says suddenly, laughing at the look of astonishment that crosses his face. "You mentioned a muggle perfume in potions earlier? It's a Chanel one. My father always brings it back from Paris for me."

"Thank Salazar," he replies with a laugh, "I was terrified you were going all telepathic on me."

"You wish," she retorts, shutting her eyes contentedly against his bare chest. "Goodnight, Theodore."

"Goodnight, Daphne."

"If you kick me in the night I'll throw you out."

He kicks her three times. She doesn't throw him out.

:…**&**…:

**A/N:** I have managed to convert myself to yet _another _pairing. I just love these two now.

Please don't favourite without reviewing!

Also, one of my favourite things to hear as a writer is that I've converted you or at least made you consider a particular pairing in a new way. I'd love to hear if I've succeeded here!


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